AMX-400 "Brucus"
"You have let down our Directorate and her Army. You have the nerve not to begin Production until now? Our Army now needs these Carriers like the air it breathes, the food it eats! Cyrus Engineering Combine produces one Carrier an hour per Production Plant and the Vulcan Military Foundry produces one or two gunships per Plant per day... this is a mockery of our Directorate AND our Army. I ask you not to try your Government's patience. Increase Production. This is your final warning." - Consul Severus Alexander to a Brucus Production Plant which fell behind quota The AMX-400 "Brucus" Universal Carrierr is a modular, all-terrain Directorate utility vehicle and, in its basic form, is among the most common in service. If all its variants are included, it is easily the most numerous vehicle in the Directorate's arsenal. Design The standard AMX-400 is a multipurpose utility and support crawler. Unlike most Directorate vehicles, its primary means of mobility is an anti-gravity repulsor system. The Brucus is designed to cross all manner of terrain without tripping mines or other anti-vehicular traps. It is lifted off the ground by a series of 20 repulsor "plates", 10 per side, attached to short electro-hydraulic legs which udulate as the vehicle travels over the ground to keep it at a constant meter or so of clearance. The Brucus is quite a large vehicle, with ample room in its hold for a squad of Directorate infantrymen and their full equipment, or even a fire-time of Janissaries. The vehicle's powerplant - a compound dual-bottle fusion reactor - is located roughly in the mid-section, between the cockpit and transport cabins, with a connecting corridor between them. The standard AMX-400 is equipped with a bow-mounted 23mm tri-barreled chaingun in a small turret sunk into the front left side of the hull, as well as a 65mm autocannon mounted on the right forward roof, above the driver's position. Variants AMX-401 "Hermes" Armored Personnel Carrier - Primary Directorate infantry fighting vehicle. Replaces the 65mm autocannon with a dual 23mm magnetohydrodynamic cannon system an automatic autocannon version of the P-445 Type-11 Magnetohydrodynamic Rifle in a small remote-operated turret. Anti-armor missile pods are mounted on either side of the turret. AMX-402 "Jupiter" Gun Carrier - self-propelled gun system / tank hunter equipped with a massive 180mm railgun running through the entire hull and protruding out through a casement where the bow chaingun position would be on the normal AMX-400 Carrier. Troop capacity is replaced with ammunition magazines and a larger, more powerful reactor, as well as banks of high-performance capacitors to store the energy necessary to fire the main gun. AMX-403 "Apollo" Missile System - mounts a multiple-launch missile system in a rotating platform atop the transport cabin. Armed with 152mm Type-9 Apollo multipurpose anti-armor/anti-air missiles. Has the same bow chaingun and autocannon mount as the standard AMX-400. AMX-404 "Athena" Anti-aircraft System - replaces the AMX-400's forward 65mm autocannon mount with target acquisition gear. Mounts a turret above the transport cabin with two dual reciprocating 23mm magnetohydrodynamic cannon systems total of four guns plus anti-air missile pods. AMX-405 "Diana" Anti-aircraft System - same as AMX-404 Athena but mounts triple 65mm autocannons and no missiles AMX-406 "Vulcan" Repair and Recovery Carrier - Same weapon loadout as standard AMX-400. Mounts a large recovery crane over the transport cabin and carries a nanobot field repair system. AMX-407 "Terra" Mobile Protection System - unarmed variant of the AMX-400 mounting a large energy screen projector, capable of projecting a large dome-shaped energy screen, or "shield bubble" in a 100 meter radius around itself. AMX-408 "Terminus" Assault Breacher - same weapons loadout as the standard AMX-400. Mounts additional armored plating, more powerful energy screens, a large armored obstacle-clearing bow ram and a launcher over the cabin that fires long, 100-meter strips of plastic explosives for clearing mines. AMX-409 "Sol" Mobile Laser System - The AMX-409 lacks the chaingun and autocannon positions of the AMX-400 original, exchanging them for a large ultraviolet pinpoint laser projector over the transport cabin. The "Sol", while usable as an anti-infantry or anti-aircraft - and even light anti-armor - platform, is primarily intended as a point defense system, intercepting and destroying incoming enemy ordnance with 100% accuracy and a high rate of fire. AMX-410 "Imperator" Mobile Command & Control Module - Mounts the same weapons as the AMX-400. Transport cabin is converted into a mobile command center for Directorate officers, with a reduced occupancy and a mass of computer equipment. Large communication and sensory devices protrude from the back of the vehicle. AMX-411 "Venus" Mine Carrier - A mine-laying vehicle with the same armament as the standard AMX-400. Large electro-mechanical armatures protrude from the sides of the vehicle to seed the surrounding terrain with a variety of mines, hundreds of which can be stored on racks in its converted transport cabin. AMX-412 "Fascinus" Fire Support Module - Has the same bow chaingun mount as the standard AMX-400, but replaces the autocannon with fire-control equipment. Mounts a large, relatively short-barreled, 205mm magnetic coil accelerator mortar through a casement over the transport cabin, which is converted to hold ammunition. Designed to provide integral tactical fire support to Directorate forces at relatively short ranges.